Every man in the unit had raised a fuss at the idea, of course. And then, of course, every one of them had hit on her as soon as she joined. Fat lot of good it did them. They would have bounced anyway, even if Sherrilyn hadn't heard about the ruckus they'd raised over her transfer—which she didn't hesitate to rub in the faces of the would-be Casanovas once she arrived.
Harry could have told them, but hadn't bothered. Good ole boys, sure, but they just weren't suave and debonair enough to have profited from his advice anyway. The only way you hit on Sherrilyn Maddox was to get her intrigued by a challenge. Standard issue lines were a pure waste of time. The way Harry had pulled it off was to ignore her altogether until he ran across her one day in a bar over in Clarksburg, where he was drinking with a fake license, and she'd started making suggestions herself.
"I dunno," Harry had said, looking at her dubiously. "Word is you're a rock-climber. Is that true?"
After she confessed to an enthusiasm for the sport, a little shudder had swept his shoulders. "Jeez, Sherrilyn. Your hands must be like sandpaper. Strip the skin right off a man's back."
Worked like a charm.
He smiled at the memory, as he watched the ten-gauge getting hoisted out of the hold and into Sherrilyn's hands. He could hear Gerd's voice coming from below, although he couldn't quite make out the words themselves. From the tone, though, Gerd was sure enough whining and grousing. There was something a little kinky about his love affair with that monster, even if Harry didn't think it quite crossed the line into outright perversion.
He looked at the pirate ship. Two hundred yards away.
"Hey, Paul! We ought to be starting to get drunk around now."
Maczka frowned at him. Harry's unit had a capacity for prodigious alcohol consumption, when they relaxed. But they were stone sober any time they were on duty. Then, realizing what Harry was getting at, his frown deepened.
"I don't think we got any empty bottles. Hate to waste good liquor, pouring it out."
Sherrilyn looked up from checking the loads in the shotgun. "Pour it into one of Juliet's bowls. We'll make a punch for the celebration afterward."
Paul nodded and lowered himself down the hatch.
"Bring up my second-best hat, while you're at it!" Harry hollered at him. Then, went over to Sherrilyn and sat down beside her.
"You'll need the hat to keep your face hidden. Mostly covered by a blanket, lady weight-lifter or not, and even pushing forty like you are, ain't no way anybody's going to mistake you for a guy, up close."
"Harry, have I ever told you that you have the worst come-on lines of anybody I know?"
"Sure. The morning after we spent the first night in bed together. I couldn't tell if you were really pissed, though, the way you were laughing."
She chuckled, softly. "Walked into that one, didn't I? Okay, genius boss, what's the plan?"
"You open it up. That ten-gauge will deafen 'em, even if you miss—which you hardly can't, at this range, as short as Gerd sawed down the barrels."
"I'll bust my shoulder if I try to fire this thing without—"
"I ain't stupid," Harry cut her off. "Don't bother getting up. You don't really gotta aim it anyway, just point it in the general direction." He nodded at the blankets covering her and Juliet. "You don't need both of them now. Roll one of 'em up tight and use it as a brace for the butt."
Sherrilyn thought about it for a moment, and then nodded. "Okay, that'll work. Well enough, anyway. But the blanket—the one that'll still be on us, I mean—"
"Way ahead of you, Sherrilyn. I should have said you'll open up the shooting. I'll start the whole business by yanking the blanket off you and waving it at the foe. Works for matadors, and these guys are way dumber than any bull."
Paul emerged from the hold with Harry's hat perched on his head. He was climbing the ladder a bit awkwardly since he held a bottle in each hand. Both were filled with clear liquid. Water, presumably, taken from the supply they boiled for drinking purposes.
"You hear that, Paul?"
"You start it, Sherrilyn shoots first, the rest of us pitch in afterward."
"Right. Pass it on to everybody else, will you?"
Paul leaned over and handed Harry one of the bottles and the hat. Then, moving more easily with one hand free, came the rest of the way out of the hatch and headed toward the stern where Donald Ohde was talking to Matija Grabnar. He still had time to pass along the plan to them and get back to the tarp in the bow before the pirates got close enough to make an accurate count of the crew members of their prospective victim.